Every year I post New Year’s resolutions. (See previous years here: 2013 and 2014.) This year, I noticed that Red Leaf Style has evolved. Between the home solutions, tips and ideas, I’ve started adding more of my personality and style to the blog. I’m writing about travel, life and other randomness. That’s why this year, my resolutions aren’t just about home decorating. They’re about life in general. I hope you find them as inspiring as I do. 1. Be more in the moment It’s time to slow down. Breathe. Take in the little moments. I spent too much of 2014 rush, rush, rushing. I’m happy and content where I am right now. I want to enjoy it. This year is all about not stressing over the small things. I encourage you to do the same. 2. Read more books Nothing new in this resolution. But it’s a good one. I used to spend entire weekends devouring books. It’s time to recapture some of that bookworm nature. Today, I signed up for goodreads.com, a website that helps you keep track of the books you’ve read, as well as to check out book recommendations from others. Anybody tried it? How do you like it? 3. Write things down This year I’m actually...
Weekend Finds: Saturday Garage Sale Haul
Last weekend I got up early and hit the garage sales. Driving from spot to spot, I scoped out some good deals. It was a prefect weekend for garage saleing. The cool weather meant tons of people were having sales. I didn’t drive far at all and found some great stuff for low prices! Here’s what I found: Small wooden end table: $3 (Yes, $3) Glass ice bucket: $5 Two books: 25 cents each Random hardware: 25 cents Two 4×6 Crate & Barrel rugs: $35 total Two dark wood shelves: $15 total I bought a couple of cheap paperbacks to take on my upcoming trip to Cambodia!. You can’t beat 25 cents each. I’m excited to add this ice bucket to my vintage bar cart! Perhaps my best finds of the day were two barely-used 4×6 Crate & Barrel rugs. They’re a pretty white and beige color and they feel so soft! Also, they’re pup-approved. Check out my past weekend finds! What do you think of my finds? Let me know in the comments!...
Vintage Bar Cart: Styled For Spring
For a while now, my bar cart has sat mostly empty. I don’t drink hard liquor very often, so I’ve had two lone bottles of liquor hanging out on my bar cart. Not much of a bar cart, huh? Well, I finally got tired of looking at my sadly “styled” bar cart and decided to spruce it up. I didn’t spend any money on new stuff; I just gathered up items from around the house. Here’s how I styled my bar cart for spring, plus a few tips for styling your own bar cart. 1. Use a tray to organize Placing a tray on the bottom shelf of my bar cart helps it look organized. The tray corrals my two bottles of liquor (pathetic), shot glasses and other bar supplies together. Now all of those random items look neat and organized instead of like a jumbled mess. (Here’s another idea for using a tray on your bar cart.) 2. Line up glasses Arranging your wine, martini and champagne glasses in neat rows will immediately improve the look of your bar cart. It worked for me. I had originally tried lining up the glasses in the tray, but I like the look...
Decorating With Spring Flowers
Do you love decorating with flowers, but don’t love paying for them? Me too! I think of flowers as more of a splurge purchase, which means I don’t have them in my house very often. Until now. I realized the other day that springtime is the perfect season to find pretty blossoms—for free! Just take a walk around your neighborhood. That’s exactly what I did. I grabbed my pruning shears, and my dog and I took a little stroll around the neighborhood. I stopped in parks and alleyways (and maybe an unoccupied house or two) and trimmed a few branches from pretty flowering shrubs. Maybe I looked a little silly, but I was so excited about the free flowers that I didn’t care. Here’s what I gathered. After I gathered my bunch of flowers, I split them up into vases of varying sizes. I like making different types of flower arrangements. I filled a couple of mason jars with big bouquets of flowers. And then I took a few milk glass vases and plopped one bendy branch in each one. I like the contrast between the different styles of bouquets. Spring flowers pretty much do all of the decorating for...
3 Tips For a More Natural Home (Plus, My Natural Living Journey)
I talk a lot about decorating here on Red Leaf Style. But there’s a whole different side of me that I haven’t really shared with you. Well, I’m really into everything natural. I eat organic food. I clean my whole home with baking soda, vinegar and lemons. I compost. I reuse. I recycle. I’m really into this whole natural and organic thing. I try not to take myself too seriously, but I do enjoy making natural living a part of my everyday life. Natural and organic. What do these mean? Let’s talk about these terms. Natural and organic are terms used to describe everything from food to cosmetic ingredients to fabric. I’d need more than this blog post to tell you about all of the differences. But in general, “natural” doesn’t really have any regulations behind it, but “organic” does. Organic means the food or ingredient has been grown without the use of chemical pesticides. How do you start living naturally? Most of us care about our health. Usually that starts with taking a hard look at what we eat. Maybe that leads to buying organic food or cutting out processed foods. An interest in organic food tends to...
Weekend Finds: Friday Night Rummage Sale
This weekend I went to Kansas City’s First Friday event, an art walk held once a month in the Crossroads Arts District. In between checking out the art galleries, I came across a rummage sale. What luck! There’s nothing I like more than rummaging. Besides maybe the word “rummaging.” Rummaging. Rummaging. It’s an excellent word, no? Anyway, the rummage sale was held at Broadway & Penn, a local vintage-inspired clothing and home décor store. It was like an upscale garage sale. And of course I found a few goodies. Here’s what I found: Metal two-tiered basket: $10 Yellow plastic compost bin: $2 This metal basket is exactly what I’ve been looking for to hold fruit. We eat a lot of fruit. And I’m always moving bowls of fruit out of the way in our tiny kitchen. Now all of my fruit can live in one place! It’s so funny sometimes how you can find exactly what you need at secondhand sales. For weeks now I’ve been thinking about how I needed some sort of bin with a lid to keep my compost in. But I’m too cheap to buy a new compost bin. When I came across this yellow...
Outdoorsy Fireplace Mantle
With spring nearly here, I guess I’ve been in an outdoorsy kind of mood. I put together a new mantle display with the great outdoors in mind. It’s a little quirky, a little colorful and lots of fun. I don’t know how long I’ll leave it up, but I’m enjoying it for right now. I’m not the kind of person who can leave the same mantle display up for long. (As you can tell if you keep up with my blog.) After a while, I just need to switch it up. When I get in that mood, I’m usually too lazy to take everything down. If I did that I’d have to find places for everything to go, haul things up and down stairs, and do a lot of reorganizing. There’s no way that’s going to happen very often. Instead, I sneakily move items around and add just enough new pieces to make it look different. (That’s what I did with the mirror, plants and vintage tin. You can see them all in this display.) This is an easy way to freshen up your mantle without doing a lot of work. Leave the basic pieces you like, add a...